I read this paper and it seemed like a lot of swing-for-the-fences evo conjecture and speculation, rather than much in terms of settled science.

I'm grateful to Carl Bergstrom for sharing (with a lot more detail) his reservations. https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1319424455626485765

At the the end of the day, I love a good "fuck it, let's make some predictions" session as much as anyone else.

I'm reeeeeeaaaaalllly nervous about this type of session showing up as a PNAS paper, where people will take it too seriously.

I hope I'm wrong here, but I predict that this paper will blow up in all the wrong ways, then we'll see the authors walk it back and clarify that they're speculating WELL beyond settled evidence.

Which is fine to do, but maybe not in PNAS, during the damn pandemic.

My tl;dr for this paper is captured by what Carl says partway through the excellent thread: https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1319448230409555968?s=20